Permission Forms for the PPAT® Assessment

You are required to obtain and submit to ETS permission forms for the artifacts that you submit with your task response as evidence. This includes:

student work samples

photographs of students or adults

videos that include the appearance/voice of students or adults

observations, letters, other materials supplied by colleagues or other adults

The permission forms you’ll need to use can be found below:

Student Release — complete the sections indicated and provide this form to the parent/guardian of any student under the age of 18. A Spanish version is available.

Student 18+ Release — complete the sections indicated and provide this form to any student who is 18 or over.

Adult Release — complete the sections indicated and provide this form to your colleagues or any other adults.

Try to secure permission for all students in your class in the event that you need these releases.

Your educator preparation programs will work with superintendents/school districts to inform them about the assessment, the video component of the assessment and the requirement to use and obtain approval for the PPAT® permission forms.

Do not remove identifying information from permission forms.

Student and Adult Work Submitted as Artifacts

In order for your responses to be scored fairly and to protect the identity of students and adults, it is extremely important that, in your task responses and artifacts, you do not identify:

yourself

your students

your colleagues

your school or the city/town in which your school is located

Instead, refer to students as "Student 1," "Student 2" and so on. Refer to places as "my school" or "my district." Please remove identifiers from artifacts prior to uploading — you can do this simply by crossing them out with a marker or by covering them with correction tape or fluid before scanning.

Videos Submitted as Artifacts

We recommend that you practice the videotaping a couple times to get you and your students comfortable with being recorded.

Secure permission for all other students in your class in the event that you need these releases. You should do this even if you are making the video recordings only for practice, since you might make a video suitable for submission.

Ensure parents understand that the video recordings are not about the students but are intended for assessment scoring purposes and professional discussions with other educators about the best ways to teach, and that you are required to remove all students identifying information. If, for some reason, a student’s parents refuse to grant permission, ensure that the student is seated out of the video camera's range.

Given the importance of privacy with regard to the videos, it is your responsibility to keep the video files secure. Do not use videos for any purpose other than to fulfill the requirements of this assessment. Do not upload videos to websites other than the online submission system.

Submitting Permission Forms

Prior to completing the assessment, you must scan and upload the approved permission forms to ETS via the online submission system. Refer to the Submission System User Guide for instructions for submitting permission forms. You will not be able to submit the last task if permission forms have not been uploaded to the permission forms upload area. You will be required to upload permission forms again when resubmitting your task(s).